Remembering Hatch End

A Memory of Hatch End.

Seeing the photos of Hatch End Broadway in 1965 brought back memories of how it felt to live there at the time. We moved to Hatch End that year, when I was ten, from Pinner Green. I especially remember W H Smiths, with long newspaper and magazine counters either side as you went into the shop, and further through to the pens and stationery. My dad would buy his newspaper there on the way to the station every weekday morning on his way to work. I remember the Post Office, next to the Bank, and the old Library at the other end on the corner opposite Bunces the sweetshop. At the top of that road was an 'alleyway' though to Grimisdyke Road. I also remember the Sainsburys in Pinner, queuing up with my mother to buy bacon, the smell of the food and the coolness of the marble counters at eye height. I went on my first 'date' to the Odeon in Pinner, we saw 'Gumshoe'. I belonged to St Anselm's youth club for a while, but was soon drawn away by the weekly gigs at Harrow Art School, and on Friday nights to the Victory Pub in Pinner.

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